Civ IV designer takes RTS in a new direction with Offworld Trading Company

Concept art of a Martian landscape that will see players scrambling for resources in Offworld Trading Company.

Mohawk Games, the independent studio cofounded last November by Civilization IV designer Soren Johnson, has given Ars Technica early details about its first project, a fast-paced, economy-focused reimagining of the real-time strategy genre called Offworld Trading Company.

In a recent interview with Ars, Johnson describes Offworld Trading Company as an economic real-time strategy game. “I’m trying to describe it as an RTS because there’s nothing out there that’s really like it. [It’s] sort of ill-defined. It is an RTS in that it matches the format: two to eight players, 30 to 45 minutes… you could almost describe it as an RTS without units, where the focus is on resources and buildings.”

This idea sounds odd initially—real-time strategy games like StarCraft are built almost entirely around combat—but Johnson is deliberately trying to reclaim variety for the genre. “If you look at the top 100 games on BoardGameGeek, you’re gonna see an immense variety of topics, an immense variety of mechanics, different pacing, different scales...and I want strategy games, or [real-time strategy games], to be that varied. And Offworld is like an attempt at that.”

Johnson has a track record of taking difficult game concepts and making them simple, transparent, and entertaining. With Civilization IV, for example, he took previous games’ frustrating limitation on over-building cities, the complicated “corruption” mechanic, and smoothed it into the simplicity of paying gold for more cities. Johnson’s lesser-known Dragon Age: Legends combined the usual arbitrary convince-friends-to-play-with-you mechanic necessary for “social games” and made it an entertaining RPG recruitment device.

Offworld Trading Company’s premise is that you control one of several companies attempting to take over the colonization of Mars. The goal is to earn money by exploiting Mars’ resources, then use that economic dominance to buy out every other player in a hostile takeover. Players make claims on land to gather raw resources and then use constructed buildings to convert those raw resources into others. So water can be converted into food a hydrolysis factory, or into oxygen and fuel through electrolysis. There are 13 resources in all, to be used for life support, building, or just for selling.

This places Offworld Trading Company snugly into the “pure capitalism” subgenre of games, where success comes from the ideals of the market: the player who can understand which products will be overvalued and undervalued and are able to manipulate their competitors will win. This leads to one of Offworld’s biggest diversions from conventional RTS forms: randomness. All maps in the game are generated randomly, so players can’t fall into habits like optimal build orders, or camping the best resources/starting points on familiar locales. Johnson and Mohawk cofounder Dorian Newcomb said that this randomness should mean that each match is different enough to introduce a bit of unpredictability in winning or losing, even among players of different skill levels.

I often find competitive multiplayer games can often be unpleasant to play, both in terms of specific matches (losing when I feel like I should have won) or in terms of a general toxic environment. Offworld’s randomness could help mitigate some of the anger and toxicity in the community (“Oh well, they just got lucky that time.”), but Newcomb said the non-destructive nature of the gameplay may also make players more accepting of their defeats.

“Playing Age of Empires, you build this great thing, and half the time you watch someone destroy it,” said Newcomb. But because Offworld Trading Company is about economic takeover instead of violent conquest, you can still get a sense of accomplishment even when you’re defeated. “If someone beats you, and they take what you’ve built, you still feel like the only way they won was because they used what you built.”

A modern M.U.L.E.

Enlarge/ Early concept sketches for various resource extraction and conversion units.

Another crucial strategic element of Offworld is the limitation on the number of claims that a player can make. Players can’t produce or convert every resource, so they’re forced to buy and sell from each other on the resource market, where price fluctuations occur purely based on player action. “The big center of the game is the resource market,” Johnson said.

Hearing about the limitations on claims and the need to buy and sell from others immediately brought images of the famous 1983 multiplayer strategy game M.U.L.E. to my mind. When I mentioned this connection, Newcomb’s eyes lit up. “M.U.L.E.’s almost a miracle in terms of when it was made, what it did, how it did it. There’s something astonishing about that game, and our hope would be that we could do something almost as astonishing.” Despite the timeless quality of Dani Bunten’s classic simulation, Mohawk thinks it can make some improvements to the formula from a modern vantage point. “If you were going to make M.U.L.E. today, knowing all the things that happened in the last 30 years of game design, this is how we would do it,” Johnson added.

Johnson and Newcomb also took pains to stress that Offworld Trading Company matches would be tight and focused rather than the multi-hour slogs of some similar titles. “The mechanics are more of a tycoon game. But most tycoon games are paced differently. They’re built as purely single-player games” which makes them last 10 hours or more. But Offworld is built around 30 to 45 minute matches. “It’s [for] people who like to play Age of Kings or StarCraft over lunchtime,” says Johnson. Still, that length will likely be customizable: “We’ll probably have some knobs. I like having knobs in games, so people can have much longer games if they want.”

Even outside of the player experience, Johnson and Newcomb said that the shorter play times have value in the development process as well, allowing the team the chance to see every facet of the game and tweak it through frequent matches. “We’ve been playing it every week, because as a multiplayer game, that’s the core of how you develop the gameplay. You can try out a feature right away because you have people on the other side.” When I noted that I rarely finished a full game of Civilization but restarted regularly, Johnson said there’s a game-design reason behind that gameplay pattern: “That’s why the early game of Civ is so enjoyable, because that’s what the developers have been able to play over and over.”

Offworld Trading Company may be conceptually ambitious, trying to take combat out of a real-time strategy genre built solidly on top of it. But Johnson and company sound like they’re trying to stay grounded to the genre’s roots, both in its development and in the play experience itself. It’s gonna have an arc, it’s gonna have intensity, it’s gonna have a resolution, and we’re all gonna get together to talk about what happened. That’s the type of game we’re making. The difference is, it’s not a combat game.”

Offworld Trading Company will be published by Stardock and released on PC for $39.99. It can be pre-ordered from offworldtrading.com, with some tiers offering playable builds in the fall. Mohawk hopes to have an Early Access version later this year as well.

RTS without the unit micromanagement and but with building all the things? oh hell yes, sign me up. I've always been a big fan of the build-up part of RTS, but I almost always will lose out to any rush tactic, because I want my beautiful advanced buildings, not guys milling about.

No corporate espionage? No sabotage of competitors factories or raw resources? No political maneuvering or clashing of ideological differences (ie. SMAC)? And how is it possible to eliminate all corruption in a faraway fledgling 'wild west' atmosphere such would be found in an off-world colony? No native lifeforms or conflict/battle for survival in hostile alien setting? This sounds like a game perfect for emotionless robots.

No corporate espionage? No sabotage of competitors factories or raw resources? No political maneuvering or clashing of ideological differences (ie. SMAC)? And how is it possible to eliminate all corruption in a faraway fledgling 'wild west' atmosphere such would be found in an off-world colony? No native lifeforms or conflict/battle for survival in hostile alien setting? This sounds like a game perfect for emotionless robots.

Maybe they'll call it the 'euro-RTS'

Anyone who thinks that a non-violent game based around trading and resources can't be emotional has never played Catan with my family.

Edit: Forgot to add, this looks like a definite buy for me. I love the RTS idea, but in practice I suck at commanding units. Looking forward to playing it!

The website is so spare in terms of details. Are they planning a minimalist art style? Do we have any idea what this game will LOOK like? I think many people would agree gameplay is the more important side of this equation, and that a solid vision from a respected developer goes a long way... but I'm a little reluctant to get too interested in a game that so far appears to be a beautiful WordPress theme.

Then, the outcome of such game will be largely dictated by the luck of starting point. It was one of the problem of Civ series game. I have an idea to level off such luck: Different initial capital to start with depending on quality of the starting point. Bad starting point should be compensated by more initial capital.

How about to have auction off starting points among players? Highest bidder will get the first (and best) starting point, which means less capital. The auction money will be distributed to other players with less desirable starting point. So good starting point + less capital vs. bad starting point + more capital.

The multiplayer aspect is still a bit of a turn off. I'm the sort of player who prefers long turn based single player games like Civ and I would prefer not to play against people, who usually just make the experience worse.

Then, the outcome of such game will be largely dictated by the luck of starting point. It was one of the problem of Civ series game. I have an idea to level off such luck: Different initial capital to start with depending on quality of the starting point. Bad starting point should be compensated by more initial capital.

How about to have auction off starting points among players? Highest bidder will get the first (and best) starting point, which means less capital. The auction money will be distributed to other players with less desirable starting point. So good starting point + less capital vs. bad starting point + more capital.

The problem with multiplayer is everyone is trying to min-max everything into the most optimum solution for winning as fast as possible. So I could forsee players who go for good starting points quitting the game as soon as they see they don't have enough Iron or water ice or whatever.

No corporate espionage? No sabotage of competitors factories or raw resources? No political maneuvering or clashing of ideological differences (ie. SMAC)? And how is it possible to eliminate all corruption in a faraway fledgling 'wild west' atmosphere such would be found in an off-world colony? No native lifeforms or conflict/battle for survival in hostile alien setting? This sounds like a game perfect for emotionless robots.

There was always a market for tycoon/manager games. It's expanded somewhat in the last 5-10 years; the rapid growth of the mobile (aka flash) tier in the last few in particular, with many persistent semi-idle games (farmville, tiny tower, dragonvale, tapped out, etc) working that delicious Freemium money printer, and inviting a flood of clones.

Losing focus. Point is, many players enjoy being builders. A high-speed competitive variant is a bit more niche, but it's not as cutthroat as, say, when I wreck you in StarCraft simply because you don't have the early game build order memorized, or meet the mandatory 6x2/20x4 checkpoints for army strength-per-time or whatever.

So it combines the thrilling boredom of economics with a riveting lack of combat to target ... well not me.

If the idea of economic-only bothers you, then I'm sure there are plenty of other games out there with more to offer. There are way too few for people who enjoy this type of strategy game. I know I wasn't the only person who played the whole of Sierra's City-building Series and much preferred the peaceful path over the focusing on war and combat. I loved just building my cities, working around the various terrain challenges, etc., and having to build up a strong military always seemed like a total waste of my time. Now I mainly play Minecraft and I almost always have it set to Peaceful mode because that's how I enjoy playing. To each their own.

This sounds great. Even playing Civ with its multiple paths to victory typically devolved into all-out war, because its easier and more fun to roll some tanks in than to keep clicking next-turn while I wait 10-turns for tech research to complete. This could set the tone for more intriguing take overs than physical force. I'll keep these guys on my watch list.

RTS without the unit micromanagement and but with building all the things? oh hell yes, sign me up. I've always been a big fan of the build-up part of RTS, but I almost always will lose out to any rush tactic, because I want my beautiful advanced buildings, not guys milling about.

YES!

My biggest problem with StarCraft II is how formulaic the play is - if you want to have a ghost of a chance at winning there are certain things you must do, all of which are seen by watching the top players in the world. There is no room for deviation, experimentation, or anything approaching creativity, unless of course you want to lose. Optimal build orders mean that half of the units for a faction may as well not exist if you want to win.

This game, I see as a completely different animal, more akin to something like Go - the tactical part of the experience is how well you control regions, and how you develop them for profit. There are overarching real-world principles, but the 'mathematical solution to the game' is in flux between matches, and is never known ahead of time.

The only thing I could hope to ask for is a shorter-time version of this; in my day-to-day life I find I don't usually have 30-45mins to spend on gaming, these days.

No corporate espionage? No sabotage of competitors factories or raw resources? No political maneuvering or clashing of ideological differences (ie. SMAC)? And how is it possible to eliminate all corruption in a faraway fledgling 'wild west' atmosphere such would be found in an off-world colony? No native lifeforms or conflict/battle for survival in hostile alien setting? This sounds like a game perfect for emotionless robots.

Maybe they'll call it the 'euro-RTS'

Where did they definitively state that none of that will happen? The article focuses only on the main mechanic, not the many ways you can subvert things.

The website is so spare in terms of details. Are they planning a minimalist art style? Do we have any idea what this game will LOOK like? I think many people would agree gameplay is the more important side of this equation, and that a solid vision from a respected developer goes a long way... but I'm a little reluctant to get too interested in a game that so far appears to be a beautiful WordPress theme.

It's probably about a year out at this point (early access aka open beta isn't even coming until "later this year"), I'd cut them some slack while they refine the game and wait for a trailer. Then you can get excited!

The multiplayer aspect is still a bit of a turn off. I'm the sort of player who prefers long turn based single player games like Civ and I would prefer not to play against people, who usually just make the experience worse.

AI bots get developed for almost any multiplayer game eventually, hopefully they'll be included at some point during development. I know I'm often in the mood for some single-player action, and once the hype dies off, the multiplayer availability often dwindles. Old multiplayer-only games are sad ghosts of greatness.

He nailed the timing thing. I like tycoon style games, but as a new dad I get only a couple of nap time's worth of play on weekends which forces me into other game types. 10 hours or more feels like such a huge commitment now.

Many of the so called "euro-games" genre are far more competitive than those based in traditional combat based games. Just because a game doesn't have direct combat doesn't mean that there isn't conflict - and it is conflict which creates tension, emotion and competition within a game.

As someone pointed out, Settlers of Catan is brimming with conflict and competition. For me Carcassonne is one of the most cut-throat and conflict ridden games out there - even though there is no direct combat.

Throwing away units which you can rebuild (such as in traditional RTS's) has no emotional weight. Locking someones piece into a dead end situation (like you can, and often do, in Carcassone) is an attack on someones ability to actually play the game. Conflict always trumps combat.

No corporate espionage? No sabotage of competitors factories or raw resources? No political maneuvering or clashing of ideological differences (ie. SMAC)? And how is it possible to eliminate all corruption in a faraway fledgling 'wild west' atmosphere such would be found in an off-world colony? No native lifeforms or conflict/battle for survival in hostile alien setting? This sounds like a game perfect for emotionless robots.

Maybe they'll call it the 'euro-RTS'

That will be in the DLC.

Actually it looks like it's in the game from launch. This is from the site:

Quote:

Finally, the black market allows for more direct interactions than manipulating the price of silicon. Drop a wad of cash to hire pirates to harass your opponents’ supply chains, smuggle a crippling EMP device into their factories, or send a power surge through their facilities – but don’t be surprised when your corporation finds itself on the receiving end of some of these effects.

Then, the outcome of such game will be largely dictated by the luck of starting point. It was one of the problem of Civ series game. I have an idea to level off such luck: Different initial capital to start with depending on quality of the starting point. Bad starting point should be compensated by more initial capital.

How about to have auction off starting points among players? Highest bidder will get the first (and best) starting point, which means less capital. The auction money will be distributed to other players with less desirable starting point. So good starting point + less capital vs. bad starting point + more capital.

The problem with multiplayer is everyone is trying to min-max everything into the most optimum solution for winning as fast as possible. So I could forsee players who go for good starting points quitting the game as soon as they see they don't have enough Iron or water ice or whatever.

It is problem of classic multi-player Civ game itself, not mine only. My suggestion will actually reduce such opportunistic early quit behavior, because starting point lacking vital resources will be compensated with more initial capital to buy such resources. And such behavior can be mitigated by punishing them with penalty like "troll queue" in DOTA 2 game.

Really surprised no one has mentioned the Anno series, which is an RTS series focused on building cities, harvesting resources, diplomacy, and trading resources that you can't harvest yourself. Combat is present, but it takes a backseat to the trading, building, and resource management, and can even be completely disabled. I only have experience with Anno 1404 (known as Dawn of Discovery here in the U.S.) and Anno 2070, but they are both excellent games if you like trading and city/industry building simulation.

You could also choose an industrial career path in high security space in EVE Online. It's more of an FPS than an RTS, but you still have to exploit resources and interact with other players in a market-based economy.

I'll probably give this a try, though, since I'm an AoE-, Civ- and EU-series fan.

I had pretty much this idea about 5 years ago for a games design class, but it quickly became nebulous and wieldy.

An economic resource based MMO RTS,

Start on a corp ship with hundreds of other real-world people on the same server, "Find an empty planet", set up a terraform and mining operation in your little corner, set up shop on your little acreage, set up the traffic and shipping systems, mining equipment, and put it all into a real-time multiplayer universe, so everything costs time rather than resources, lots of automation and weather / environment concerns.

possibly some kind of tech tree to gate players from being able to grief each other mercilessly, and so on.

Didn't get a lot of traction for it, as there wasn't a really good support system for the online and RTS features, lots of scope creep and no real way to create a stable ecosystem of players that wouldn't find exploits, and people would probably get sick of the RTS style builds that took weeks to find enough ceramics and compounds to produce bio-printed plants and bio-printed houses, buildings, droids and equipment for your habitat/enclaves.adding in competition and faction warfare would have been a bit like herding cats in trying to balance resource usage and time, and very un-fun to wait days for a plant to seed and spread to build crops in a realistic way for most people.

As you progressed into the tech tree and resource usage, you'd go from remote-control to land-holding and mining, transports and roads to other players, then to cities and infrastructure building, to space trading and corporate/franchise setups to produce franchise goods for sale to the local system, et.al. and you would basically earn higher end responsibilities along the way if you wanted them, system governors and so on to run your empire among other greedy SOBs seeded into the same solar system.